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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26254696">Rumours</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissRachelThalberg/pseuds/MissRachelThalberg'>MissRachelThalberg</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Tea &amp; Tropes [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Bletchley Circle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Eventual Romance, F/F, GAY CODEBREAKER LADIES, Trains</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:28:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,752</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26254696</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissRachelThalberg/pseuds/MissRachelThalberg</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There's Millie, there's Jean - there's friends, and there's rumours.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Millie Harcourt/Jean McBrian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Tea &amp; Tropes [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1902100</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Susan</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Yet another TROPEFIC - this one covers the "Everybody Knows We're In Love, Except You And I"-trope. It'll feature four short chapters: Susan, Alice, Lucy... and Jean.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Gosh, you have all the answers, haven’t you?”</p><p>It’s that prickly phrase that makes Millie feel she’s winning; Susan’s self-imposed amnesia makes her forget, sometimes, exactly how close they once were, exactly how well Millie can read her thoughts still.</p><p>“She’s a lot like you,” Millie offers, as a peace offering, but Susan refuses.</p><p>“She’s nothing like me.”</p><p>“She’s giving herself up to save her daughter’s life.”</p><p>She’s won, then, and Susan will help them after all, and Alice – hopefully, maybe, probably – will leave prison a free woman. And alive.</p><p>“And it isn’t just Alice, either. Lizzie’s gone missing.”</p><p>Susan hears her, looks out of the window again. When she speaks, her voice is quiet, measured.</p><p>“You know very well what you’re doing, don’t you?”</p><p>It’s an astonishing acknowledgement, really, and Susan’s very first indication that she knows Millie well, too, that they’re not just like any pair of old friends, that if Timothy was really <em>onto them</em> as he’d once joked, he’d learn a lot more than he bargained for. Millie lifts an easy eyebrow.</p><p>“Just as well as you knew what you were doing when you showed up at my front door.”</p><p>She’s surprised at herself for taking the bait; she’s not said a word of this to Susan before. She wasn’t planning to - was, in fact, trying her damnedest not to.</p><p>At the same time -</p><p>“<em>What</em>?”</p><p>Susan knows, of course; the sudden return of the virtuous young matron is unworthy of her truly spectacular brain, no matter how convenient it might be to hide behind. Millie keeps her voice low, her face neutral.</p><p>“Seven years’ silence, Susan. After what we had. And you show up not for me, not because you wonder how I’m doing – you show up to tell me about your husband’s promotion and to use my brain. And <em>I’m </em>the one who knows very well what she’s doing?”</p><p>Susan looks at her, then, and she knows her words have hit home – even with this Susan, who’s no longer <em>her </em>Susan, and who’s used middle-class respectability to convince herself a part of her doesn’t exist.</p><p>It strikes Millie how utterly absurd it is that they’re having this conversation – insofar as they are having it – in Susan’s staid, depressing, thoroughly<em> married</em> front room.</p><p>Their eyes meet, grey on brown.</p><p>What Susan does next, though, surprises her. She turns her head, averts her gaze – then her eyes snap back and she’s furious, and she’s tired, and she’s wearily amused, too.</p><p>“That one’s gone stale, Millie. As if Jean didn’t replace me years ago.”</p><p>“<em>Jean</em>?”</p><p>Susan’s quiet, intense, utterly exasperated.</p><p>“You heard me. I’m sorry I hurt you, I’m sorry I didn’t show, but don’t you dare pretend that if only I changed my mind, we’d be as we were. I have eyes and I have a heart.”</p><p>It’s a dizzyingly inaccurate read of her and Jean’s relationship, of course; just like Susan, too, to attribute Millie’s easy connection with the older woman to something more than friendship. Telling love from friendship had always been one of her more <em>convenient</em> weak spots.</p><p>Millie shakes her head, uncertain what to say; muzzled, suddenly, by the walls of Timothy’s home and the voices of Timothy’s children and the eyes of Timothy’s wife. Susan doesn’t understand her, certainly doesn’t understand her and Jean, but she’s right in that things have gone stale – stale and tired, and she’s done pining for the past. She takes her bag off the side table, gets to her feet, straightens her blazer, feels suddenly lighter and freer.</p><p>“Think about what I said, all right? If not for me, then for Alice. She’s a mother, too.”</p><p>She leaves and almost forgives, but she doesn’t quite forget.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Alice</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Inviting Alice out, Millie thinks as she spots her friend across the room, was the very least she could do; the Royal Marston, a night of glad rags and cocktails and maybe a spot of dancing… well, it’s the brightest and best antidote to prison she could think of.</p><p>“Darling, you made it!”</p><p>She doesn’t know Alice very well just yet, perhaps, but she wants to know her better – another Bletchley girl, someone who understands, but someone she doesn’t need to pine over – Susan! – or protect – Lucy!</p><p>(She’s unsure why she doesn’t quite include Jean in that list, but she tries very hard, these days, not to think about Jean too often. It’s surprisingly difficult.)</p><p>“Come on, let’s have a cocktail…”</p><p>After all – why not? Business is booming and Swiss finishing school is paying off in more ways than one; she’d make her money with her brains if Her Majesty’s government would let her but, failing that, the right accent, the right thing to say, and a gaggle of former school friends with titles and estates will pay the bills just fine. Jasper’s a roué who’s terrible at bluffing, but he knows who and what she is, too, and she likes him. It’s fine for now. Jean wouldn’t approve, but does she care?!</p><p>She rejoins Alice after her chat with Jasper, tells her with a smirk that “silk is saucy, men prefer it, nylons are old hat” – and makes this new old Bletchley pal, one who understands her better even than Jasper, her co-conspirator in the joke she’s pulling on the class of her birth. Alice, half a cocktail in, giggles; the night goes by in a haze of good sales, good cigarettes, good booze, and friendship.</p><p>Eventually they find themselves slumping side by side, half hidden by a curtain, gazing out into the room without desiring very much to be part of it anymore. Alice looks young and happy; Millie’s pleased with the effects of her experiment.</p><p>“Nice?” asks Millie, and Alice nods.</p><p>“Lovely. Thank you.”</p><p>They watch Jasper, across the room, getting ready to leave; it’s after one o’clock and all the very <em>proper</em> ladies in need of stockings or perfume or French ciggies have been provided for. He raises a hand, blows a kiss at Millie, she grins and gives him a little wave.</p><p>Alice looks at her sideways.</p><p>“So, you and Jasper are not…?”</p><p>Millie laughs out loud.</p><p>“Oh love, no. We met during the War, gambling on cards, and we became matey, that’s all. He tried it on, of course, bless him, but my interests lie elsewhere. He’s aware now.”</p><p>She wonders if Alice gets what she’s saying; decides, more than a little tipsy, to clarify.</p><p>“Men might prefer silk, but that doesn’t mean I prefer <em>them</em>.”</p><p>It instantly gives Alice the giggles, which is a relief to Millie – she’d assumed her new friend, herself an unwed mother and one of Turing’s girls, wouldn’t mind, but you never know.  </p><p>Almost spilling her cocktail, still giggling, Alice nods.</p><p>“Of course – you and Jean, it’s obvious. Sorry, I didn’t quite want to - "</p><p>Millie clacks her tongue.</p><p>“Now why,” she interrupts, more than a little amused. “do all my friends seem to think Jean’s been getting into my knickers?! Just good friends, darling, any weakness on my behalf for any woman with sensible shoes and that really <em>thick</em> dark hair notwithstanding!”</p><p>Alice looks a little embarrassed, but not exactly mortified.</p><p>(Millie has the vague sense that she’s skeptical – the <em>cheek</em>!)</p><p>“Oh, I just – I assumed, I suppose, because she always seems to be looking at you, and Lucy told me you stayed overnight in hospital for two nights after she got shot, and it felt, well, logical.”</p><p>Lucy too?!</p><p>Millie smiles, shakes her curls, tries not to think too much about Jean’s dark, dark hair, loose and thick on the starched hospital pillows – the pallour of her face as she slept, her little smile when Millie brought her a cup of tea, their wordless understanding that she’d added just the teeniest nip of gin, for courage.</p><p>(Their hands meeting when the morphine wore off, the pressure of Jean's fingers in hers.)</p><p>“Sorry, nothing doing!”</p><p>Laughing, she takes a sip of champagne, tries on for a joke what’s been bothering her for weeks now.</p><p>“Anyway, she’d <em>cane</em> me if she found out what I was up to here. Not a word!”</p><p>She brings a manicured finger to her lips, feeling bright and elegant and carefree and also, not so suddenly, a little lonely, a little secretive, a little wrong. She hasn’t seen Jean in weeks; no late-night library visits, no damson gin, no concerned questions about how she’s making her money these days.</p><p>In truth: she’d trade boarding school chatter for dour Scots any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.</p><p>Alice smiles, too new still to read the doubts in Millie’s laughter - clinks their glasses together.</p><p>“Not a word.”</p><p>Millie throws back her champagne cocktail, goes in search of a third, a fourth.</p><p>She’ll tell Jean tomorrow, she decides.</p><p>Tomorrow, for sure.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Lucy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Oh look, you’re obviously the one falling for him. Would that be happening if you didn’t trust him?”</p><p>“I trusted Harry,” Lucy responds, instantly, stiffly, and Millie’s heart breaks a little for her.</p><p>“Oh, darling. Just because you made a mistake once, it doesn’t mean you can’t judge another man’s character. You were just a girl. Anyone would’ve done the same.”</p><p>“You wouldn’t have.”</p><p>Lucy’s confidence is touching, if not entirely warranted.</p><p>“I might. Who’s to say I haven’t?”</p><p>Then:</p><p>“Please? Will you try and talk to Ben? Please?”</p><p>Lucy nods, then, and they walk on side by side. After a while, Millie feels a sideways glance.</p><p>“How about you, then?”</p><p>Millie snorts, smiles, shakes her head.</p><p>“A man, you mean? Not a chance.”</p><p>“I know that, Millie. I meant Jean.”</p><p>Of course she meant Jean; <em>apparently</em>, Millie thinks, all her friends have been talking about her and Jean for the past – what, decade? She chuckles; it doesn’t sound quite as casual as she was hoping it would.</p><p>“Jean and I have never - ”</p><p>“I know you haven’t. But you’d like to, though.”</p><p>Millie, again, goes for casual; ends up sounding much, much too interested, much too curious.</p><p>“Oh yes? How can you possibly know that?”</p><p>Lucy gives her that look, that new confident-Lucy-look, with the eyebrows. Of course Lucy has evidence for what she’s been saying – of course she’s, as ever, world’s most reliable eyewitness.</p><p>“I know because you were never scared of her at Bletchley, even when we were, and because, last year, you knew where she worked even before Susan found out – nobody else did – and because that time you offered to serve at bait, you were really talking to her, and she was only talking to you when she said it was too dangerous. And after Harry beat me, when you took me in, she knew where things were in your flat and you gave her a key like it was only natural, and when you bought me the bed, you looked at each other like you were my <em>parents</em> – the two of you, together. You’re the only one who teases her and calls her a terror, who smirks at her asking <em>how </em>she could know who Alice’s lover was at Bletchley, who gets her flustered – you’re the only one she ever really raises her voice at, because she’s sure of you and you’re sure of her.”</p><p>She recites the words as easily as she did German troop movements, once upon a time at Bletchley; Millie opens her mouth, closes it again. Lucy continues.</p><p>“I’ve been in the Blitz with you – remember when we went to London in ’44, in November, to the shops, and that V1 hit the Woolworth's next door, and I had a nosebleed and you’d sprained your ankle, and you weren’t scared then, you didn’t shake – and you were scared, and you shook, when Jean got shot, even after the police came. I can still see your hands trembling when they took her from you. And at the hospital, I saw how you looked at her just before she told me to please go home and get some rest, and I saw how she looked at you, then, knowing you’d come back right after putting me in the cab. I knew you’d go back, anyway; you thought to bring your coat, but you didn’t bring your bag. And Susan knew it, too; I saw it in her face as she walked away from the prison, when she bit her lip and turned away. And when you were abducted - ”</p><p>“Lucy, she called me stupid. She was <em>furious</em>.”</p><p>“Yes, and she wouldn’t have been, not really, had it been me, or Susan, or Alice, because it just doesn’t <em>matter</em> as much, but it did when you were taken. And when you came back, she was the only one you were <em>really</em> talking to when you told us you’d known we wouldn’t approve, that you didn’t need us to tell you you’d been a bloody idiot.”</p><p>A pause, something close to a grin on Lucy’s face.</p><p>“And I know because of the way you <em>didn’t</em> go to stay with her when you were scared to stay in your own flat.”</p><p>Millie smiles into the distance, non-committal to the end.</p><p>“Well, I was ashamed.”</p><p>“But you’re never ashamed – not in that way. But you are with her, because it <em>matters</em>.”</p><p>There isn’t very much Millie can say to that, because it’s true – it’s all true, like everything Lucy’s been telling them for the past decade. It does matter; it’s always mattered.</p><p>“I’m not a child anymore, you know. I’m three years older than you were in ’45.”</p><p>And that’s also as true as it is deeply strange to think about.</p><p>Lucy rests her hand on Millie’s arm as they walk along, squeezes it gently. Her voice softens.</p><p>“It’s Susan, isn’t it? Your ‘who’s to say I haven’t’? The one who’s made you worried about trusting anyone else?”</p><p>There isn’t very much Millie can say to that, either, and there’s absolutely no way to react to this that won’t give her away. Embarrassingly, she feels tears sting at the back of her eyes when she nods.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>She takes a deep breath.</p><p>“I waited for her; she didn’t come. There hasn’t been anyone since – not seriously. I know it’s not like you and Harry, of course – no violence, nothing like that, but…”</p><p>“It’s left you wondering if you can ever trust anyone else.”</p><p>Millie nods. Lucy smiles, brightly, confidently, with her new hair and her new clothes and her new job. She’s right; she’s not a child anymore, and Millie no longer needs to look after her, to protect her. She is a friend, though, and she understands.</p><p>Impulsively, Lucy throws her arms around Millie, holds her at arm’s length.</p><p>“Oh, darling. Just because you made a mistake once, it doesn’t mean you can’t judge another woman’s character. You were just a girl. Anyone would’ve done the same.”</p><p>Millie laughs, then, hugs Lucy – darling, soft, tough, <em>brilliant</em> Lucy – in turn.</p><p>When this is all over, she’s going to need a word with Jean.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Jean</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Millie does pack her woollies.</p><p>They bundle into a cab together, make it to Euston with just under ten minutes to spare, board a half-empty train to Glasgow. They have the compartment to themselves, which is a relief to Millie, who tosses their bags onto the luggage rack and then sinks down opposite Jean with a sigh.</p><p>She’s fairly sure she looks a mess; Jean, of course, has not a hair out of place. Nazi bombs couldn’t unsettle her, why would a gang of Maltese smugglers be any different?</p><p>(There have been times, lately, when she’s wanted very much to be the person to unsettle Jean herself, but that’s neither here nor there.)</p><p>The train moves; they pull out of London, ever northwards, and Millie, pocket mirror in hand, adjusts her lipstick. Jean watches her with barely hidden amusement, Millie smirks and blows her a kiss.</p><p>“I’ve never been to Scotland – just trying to make a good impression!”</p><p>It distracts Jean from her Presbyterian disapproval of Millie’s wicked ways, more’s the pity. She lifts an eyebrow.</p><p>“You’ve been to Lithuania and you’ve been to India and you’ve been to Australia but you haven’t been to <em>Scotland</em>?”</p><p>Millie grins.</p><p>“Darling, I don’t speak the language!”</p><p>Jean rolls her eyes.</p><p>“Anyways, <em>dear</em>, it takes a good long while to get to Glasgow.”</p><p>*</p><p>As it turns out, it does, indeed, take a good long while to get to Glasgow; Millie’s excellent with maps and directions, of course, but regions north of London have never quite been her specialty.</p><p>When a judicious amount of time has passed and the train slows down again, she leans forward toward the window, squints to see the sign. Jean laughs.</p><p>“Northampton. We’re in the <em>East Midlands</em>, Milie. You know where Scotland is, don’t you?!”</p><p>“I do! I’m just showing an interest in our seemingly <em>endless</em> journey, that’s all!”</p><p>Jean pats the seat beside her, smiles.</p><p>“Come sit here, you’ll see the signs coming. And have a sandwich – you always were a particularly recalcitrant girl when hungry.”</p><p>Millie generally prides herself on her powers of concentration – what Bletchley girl could not? – but between the thrill of her own thigh touching Jean’s, even through several layers of eminently sensible fabric, <em>and</em> the way Jean says “recalcitrant”, she’s frankly shaky in a way hunger has nothing to do with.</p><p>The sandwich – <em>when </em>did Jean have the time to prepare sandwiches?! – is excellent, of course; Jean’s always are. They eat, share a bottle of lemonade and just a nip of something stronger. Millie looks out for the signs, catches, from the corner of her eye, Jean looking at her instead.</p><p>Finally, she smiles and turns her head.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Why didn’t you tell me?”</p><p>She doesn’t need to ask what Jean means; they’ve always been able to understand one another just fine.</p><p>“I knew you wouldn’t approve.”</p><p>“That’s never stopped you before,” Jean responds, accurately, and Millie spontaneously flashes back to one too many unauthorised smoke breaks back at Bletchley – the odd word of warning from Miss McBrian, the earnest apology, the secret thrill. She shrugs, older and wiser.</p><p>“It felt different this time.”</p><p>“Because Susan’s gone?”</p><p>It’s perceptive, a bit risky, but then Jean’s never been a coward, and maybe Millie has. She looks squarely back at her friend, knows the conversation has moved on from maps and sandwiches in ways that matter.</p><p>“Because I’m not in love with Susan anymore.”</p><p>She leans back, lights a cigarette, eyes Jean with her brand new frankness.</p><p>“Ah.”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>It’s Jean turn to look out the window, where anonymous, ancient, rolling hills pass them by. Millie can see her profile, motionless, hard to read – her hair, dark and thick and <em>magnificent</em>, silhouetted against the cloudless sky.</p><p>On impulse, she reaches out, unsure what to do, how to convey this, how not to break this. In the end, she brushes a single knuckle against Jean’s cheek.</p><p>Jean’s eyelids flutter, just visibly framed by the bright outside, like they fluttered against that hospital pillow, now months ago – when Jean’s fingers tightened in Millie’s hand, and Millie’s heart tightened in her throat.</p><p>For just a single moment, the two of them are suspended in the air of rural England, train compartment and all; invisible, like women of their kind have always been, but – just for once – in a way that feels good, feels comforting, that feels like home. Susan was electricity, danger, something she always knew, somehow, she’d lose. Jean is something she’d never hoped to gain.</p><p>She hesitates, unsure of what Jean is thinking, but <em>sure</em>, somehow, <em>absolutely sure</em> of the fact that she wants Jean to make the decision to turn toward her. One way or another, things won’t be the same when she does, and Millie desperately wants, needs, to know which way it’ll be.</p><p>A sigh, the slightest movement, Jean turns and Millie knows.</p><p>In the end, it’s Jean who kisses her first, hopelessly smearing whatever lipstick survived the sandwich, the booze – kisses her with a fascinating combination of practicality and passion Millie, in her bones, always knew she would find there. It halts Millie’s breath, just for a second, and Millie, hungry and far beyond thought, reaches, buries a hand in Jean’s hair, pulls the other woman closer.</p><p>The pins come loose in Jean’s hair – so does what Millie calls a chignon, what Jean calls a bun.</p><p>They break apart moments later; the hills are much the same and so is the sky, but Jean’s hair is loose on her shoulders, Millie’s lips are bare, and they, they together, are made different beyond recognition.</p><p>They stare at one another; the landscape forgotten, the signs unread. Millie manages a smile; Jean looks utterly (deliciously) unsettled in all the ways that matter.</p><p>It’s Millie, somehow, who finds her words first. She lifts one eyebrow, a little wickedly – tightens her arm around Jean’s shoulders, takes in the sight of her, smirks.</p><p>“Why Jean, if I’d known the Scottish Borders would have this effect on you, I’d have visited sooner!”</p><p>Years of bickering finally make sense; she knows Jean can’t resist her when she talks like this, perhaps never could. Even so, it takes her breath away when she finds herself pressed firmly backwards into the cushions, Jean’s fingers yanking immensely pleasurably at her hair, pulling her ever closer. Their knees bump into one another, she slips one bold, <em>saucy</em> hand up underneath the hem of Jean’s skirt, just touches the cool, bare skin above her stocking. Jean makes a noise against her mouth; it is extremely satisfying.</p><p>Still, it’s Millie who’s left speechless by the kiss. Jean’s face is very close, her breath fast and a little irregular.</p><p>Then: inevitably, sternly, wonderfully…</p><p>“The Scottish Borders?! We’re just outside<em> Manchester!</em>”</p><p>*</p><p>It takes a good long while to get to Glasgow, and for the first time in many years, Millie thanks the God of childhood Sundays for those few hundred miles, those mountains green, those clouded hills – Jean’s arms around her, their mouths finding one another again and again, that soft, thick hair running between her fingers, her teasing and Jean’s much-enjoyed exasperation – the <em>safety</em> of them, the utter <em>rightness</em> of being with Jean like this, like this, which never felt half as right with Susan.</p><p>(Even the almost-unfortunate encounter with a hapless train conductor was worth it, really, in the end.)</p><p>When they pull into Glasgow Central, Millie, unsettled and settled all at once, feels she’s come home.</p><p>(That night, she once again sees Jean’s glorious hair loose against a crisp white pillow, and there is no hospital in sight.)</p>
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